Raymond Gilmour (1959 – October 2016) was an
Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(IRA)
volunteer
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
who worked clandestinely from 1977 to 1982 for the
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) within those paramilitary organisations. His testimony was a main element of the
supergrass policy, which was aimed at convicting large numbers of paramilitaries.
Early life
He was born in 1959 into a working class Catholic, nationalist family in
Creggan, Derry
Creggan ( ga, An Creagán; meaning ''stony place'') is a large housing estate in Derry, Northern Ireland, on a hill not far from the river Foyle.
The estate is very close to the border with County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.
History
...
to Patrick and Brigid Gilmour, the youngest of eleven siblings and grew up as
The Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...
began in
Derry City in the early 1970s.
A cousin, Hugh Gilmour (usually spelled "Gilmore"), was shot dead by the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
on
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
, a seminal event in the development of the "Troubles" and a traumatic event witnessed by the 12-year-old Gilmour himself. His parents were reportedly split over the issue of political violence. He described his father as an "armchair supporter" of the IRA, while his mother was reportedly fiercely opposed to their actions.
Two of Gilmour's brothers were
kneecapped by the IRA for alleged anti-social behaviour. He was also given a beating by British soldiers at age 13 for petty crime and they attempted to recruit him as an informer.
He left school without sitting for his
O Level
The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...
exams and drifted into crime. When he was 16, he was again in trouble with the authorities, this time for armed robbery. On remand in
Crumlin Road Prison
HMP Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known as ' ...
, he was severely beaten by IRA prisoners. It was at this point that he apparently agreed to become an undercover agent for British security forces.
INLA member
Several months later, he joined the INLA. He chose the INLA over the IRA as a number of his friends were already in the organisation. Gilmour participated in, among other activities, a botched car hijacking in which a friend, Colm McNutt, also an INLA member, was shot dead by an undercover soldier. In 1978, after two years with the INLA as an RUC agent, he left on police instructions. He got married the same year and fathered the first of two children.
IRA career
After an interlude of several months, Gilmour was instructed by his RUC handler to join the IRA. He was offered £200 a week with bonuses for arrests and weapons finds. The IRA vetted him for several weeks before accepting his application in late 1980. They attached him to an
active service unit
An active service unit (ASU; ) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) cell of four to ten members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks. In 2002, the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units.
T ...
in the
Brandywell
The Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium ( ga, Tobar an Fhíoruisce ) is a municipal football stadium with an adjoining greyhound racing track in Derry, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of League of Ireland team Derry City F.C. and (temporari ...
area of Derry. Over the following two years, he was involved in many IRA operations, mostly as a
getaway driver
A crime scene getaway is the act of fleeing the location where one has broken the law. It is an act that the offender(s) may or may not have planned in detail, resulting in a variety of outcomes. A :crime scene is the "location of a crime; e ...
.
Most of these operations were "shoots" or
sniping
A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...
attacks, but on only one occasion, in January 1981, did his activities result in the death of a British soldier who was shot and killed at Castle Gate, near Derry's city walls. Gilmour claimed that he helped to foil many other IRA attacks, saving the lives of numerous police officers and soldiers.
In November 1981, he was arrested by the RUC, along with two other IRA members, on their way to carry out a shooting attack on riot police, who were combating disturbances arising out of the
1981 Irish Hunger Strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special C ...
. Gilmour was sent on remand to
Crumlin Road Prison
HMP Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known as ' ...
. After a riot that destroyed much of the republican wing there, he was transferred to the
Maze Prison
Her Majesty's Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as The Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house alleged paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to Sep ...
. His RUC handler then applied pressure on the authorities for his release, he was freed on 1 April 1982.
Supergrass
He left the IRA and went into protective custody in August of that year, as he believed that his position in the IRA was about to be discovered after his information led to the capture of an
M60 machine gun. Around 100 IRA and INLA members were then arrested in Derry on his evidence, of whom 35 were charged with terrorist offences.
In November, Gilmour's father was abducted by the IRA. He was held in secret in an unknown location for almost a year. Gilmour was then sent to
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
and then
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
by the RUC. The following year, Gilmour gave evidence in a special
Diplock Court
Diplock courts were criminal courts in Northern Ireland for non-jury trial of specified serious crimes ("scheduled offences"). They were introduced by the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973, used for political crime, political an ...
, jury-less trial against the 35 people he had incriminated. Under the "supergrass" scheme, his was the only evidence available against them.
On 18 December 1984, the presiding judge,
Lord Lowry
Robert Lynd Erskine Lowry, Baron Lowry, PC, PC (NI) (30 January 1919 – 15 January 1999), was a Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. Knighted in 1971, he was created a life peer as Baron Lowry, of Crossga ...
, ruled that Gilmour was not a credible witness. He said he was "entirely unworthy of belief ... a selfish and self-regarding man, to whose lips a lie comes more naturally than the truth".
Exile and plea to return home
After the trial, Gilmour was in hiding outside Northern Ireland. He states that of the IRA and INLA members he knew, almost half were dead or missing by the end of the conflict. In 1998, he published a book, ''Dead Ground: Infiltrating the IRA'', telling of his experiences.
In 2007, Gilmour publicly voiced his desire to return home to Derry, asking
Martin McGuinness
James Martin Pacelli McGuinness ( ga, Séamus Máirtín Pacelli Mag Aonghusa; 23 May 1950 – 21 March 2017) was an Irish republican politician and statesman from Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during ...
for assurances of his safety. Gilmour said he was suffering from a heart ailment and was an
alcoholic
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...
. McGuinness said Gilmour had to decide for himself if it was safe to return and whether or not he was under threat.
McGuinness stated that if de facto exiles such as Gilmour wanted to return home, it was a matter for their own judgment and their ability to make peace with the community.
Gilmour's former RUC handler advised him not to return, citing the 2006 murder in
Glenties, County Donegal, of
Denis Donaldson
Denis Martin Donaldson (1950 – 4 April 2006) was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a member of Sinn Féin who was killed following his exposure in December 2005 as an informer in the employ of MI5 and the Specia ...
, a high-ranking Sinn Féin politician and activist who was revealed to have been a long-term informer.
In April 2014, Gilmour's second book, ''What Price Truth'', was published, in which Gilmour went into greater detail about his life within the IRA and INLA.
Death
On 27 October 2016, Gilmour was found dead in his flat in Kent, where he had lain dead for up to a week. He was reportedly an alcoholic with serious psychological problems.
Following his death, Gilmour's friend,
Martin McGartland
Martin McGartland (born 30 January 1970) is a former British informer who infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1989 to pass information to RUC Special Branch.
When he was exposed as an informer in 1991 he was abducted by ...
, also a British spy who had infiltrated the IRA, and who survived a serious assassination attempt, said, "It is disgraceful that Ray died in these circumstances. He spent years begging MI5 for financial and psychological help. Instead, they turned their back on him. He was a broken man, a wreck of a human being, and they left him to die in the gutter." He was survived by his two children, from whom he was estranged, as well as a large extended family.
References
Bibliography
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilmour, Raymond
1959 births
2016 deaths
Date of birth missing
Date of death unknown
Irish National Liberation Army members
Irish republicans
Irish spies during The Troubles (Northern Ireland)
Provisional Irish Republican Army members
Royal Ulster Constabulary informants